While oil is grabbing the attention right now, shale gas is never far from the news. The Polish Geological Institute announced this week that it is likely to downgrade initial EIA estimates of its shale gas reserves following analysis of core samples. It is still early days for the shale gas industry in Poland, but so far there has been no repeat of the US success story. One of the arguments for shale gas put forward by the energy industry is that it is much cleaner than coal and should be exploited as a bridge fuel to real low carbon solutions—ODAC Trustee David Strahan looks at the arguments in his article Gas: Climate Panacea or Industry Propaganda?, while Damien Carrington takes on the economics of gas versus wind power with a look at initial data from a forthcoming UK Energy Policy Centre (UKERC) report.

In the UK, government energy policy got something of a boost this week by way of a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. According to the paper the lights will stay on through 2020, despite the scheduled retirement of coal powered plants due to European laws and parts of the nuclear fleet due to age. A primary reason for this finding comes down to reduced demand for electricity as a result of the economic crisis — perhaps not a deliberate energy policy of this government or the last, however new generating capacity is also anticipated to make a significant difference—renewables in the form of solar, wind and biomass are set to make up two-thirds of that new capacity.

Saudi Arabia is deploying the most oil rigs in four years as it prepares for possible shortages caused by tension with Iran, giving President Barack Obama one less reason to answer calls to curb prices by releasing supplies from America's emergency reserves.

The number of rigs used in the desert kingdom more than doubled in January from a year earlier, the biggest annual increase on record, data from Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) showed. As much as 1 million barrels a day of Iranian crude exports may be lost as the U.S. and Europe tighten sanctions against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government over its nuclear program, the International Energy Agency said Feb. 10...

Since last week's eurozone "grand summit", the headlines have been positive and, in the official photos anyway, the main players appear to be smiling. As such, the global equity rally goes on.

Behind the rictus grins, though, the gloves remain off, the rhetorical daggers still drawn. Having launched the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history, Athens now faces the Herculean task of persuading holders of Greek bonds to accept a "voluntary" hair-cut...

NORTH Sea oil production collapsed by a record 18 per cent last year — the biggest fall since black gold started flowing four decades ago — as the Chancellor's controversial tax hike shook investor confidence.

The slump was caused mainly by a combination of platform shutdowns for essential maintenance on ageing installations and a low number of discoveries being brought on stream...

Vince Cable said the Government is preparing to offer targeted support for Britain's oil and gas sector as part of a new and "proper industrial policy".

In a move that represents a shift from last year's controversial tax raid on North Sea oil, the Business Secretary said the Government wanted to help the sector "re-energise" its supply chains, which include thousands of small businesses...

TransCanada Corp announced Monday it would go ahead with building part of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline between Oklahoma and the Texas coast that does not require US presidential approval.

The company also said it will resubmit its proposal for the entire $7 billion pipeline project from Canada's oil sands of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries that US President Barack Obama rejected last month...

Gas

I once hitched a lift from New York to London in the private jet of an American gas billionaire. Robert Hefner III, who pioneered the drilling of deep wells in the 1960s, was planning to write a book and wanted to discuss it.

The Grand Energy Transition would argue that natural gas will solve "peak oil", when global oil production starts to decline, and dramatically cut US emissions of greenhouse gases. Abundant and clean, gas offered a perfect bridging fuel to a future of limitless low-carbon energy based on hydrogen...

To put it another way, the technique of hydraulic fracturing, used to extractnatural gas from once-impossible-to-get-at reservoirs like the Marcellus Shale that lies beneath New York and Pennsylvania, has more than proved its value. At this point, shale gas, as it's called, makes up more than 30 percent of the country's natural gas supply, up from 2 percent in 2001 — a figure that is sure to keep rising. Fracking's enemies can stamp their feet all they want, but that gas is too important to leave it in the ground...

Poland's estimated shale gas reserves, believed to be the largest in Europe, may be cut once data is analyzed from the country's first wells, the Polish Geological Institute said.

"Core logs from Polish wells are being analyzed with the help of U.S. technology," Miroslaw Rutkowski, a spokesman for the institute, said by phone. "As result, we're expecting that our estimates will be lower than those of the EIA," he said, in a reference to the Energy Information Administration...

The resources are part of an estimated 134.42 trillion cubic meters of total reserves of the gas in the country, the Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement on its website today, citing a nationwide survey. Shale gas has already been discovered in 880,000 square kilometers (340,000 square miles) of exploration blocks that contain 15.95 trillion cubic meters of the fuel that can be extracted, it said...

Coal

"OUR civilisation", wrote George Orwell over 70 years ago, "is founded on coal." Unlike Europe's, Asia's still is. In 2010, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a think-tank, coal accounted for just one-fifth of primary energy supply in the OECD countries. But, in the world as a whole, coal accounted for almost half of the increase in energy use from 2000-10. Coal, says Edward Cunningham of Boston University, is experiencing an "historically incredible" resurgence, and may even overtake oil as a fuel by 2025. There is plenty of it and, compared with rival fuels, it is cheap. And often dirty...

Nuclear

It is possible none of Japan's nuclear reactors, all but two of which were shut down after last year's Fukushima disaster, will be up and running this summer when electricity demand peaks, the trade minister said on Thursday.

Only two of 54 reactors are still operating amid safety concerns after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered a radiation crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, leading to widespread contamination and mass evacuations...

Mining and Minerals

The global mining, oil and gas industries have expanded so fast in the last decade they are now leading to large-scale "landgrabbing" and threatening farming and water supplies, according to a report by environment and development groups in Europe, Africa and India.

"The catalogue of devastation is growing. We are no longer talking about isolated pockets of destruction and pollution. In just 10 years, iron ore production has more than doubled, coal has risen 45% and metals like lithium by 125%. Across Africa, Latin America and Asia, more and more lands, rivers and aquifers are being devoured by mining activities...

UK

Fears that the UK could experience energy shortages in the second half of the decade are likely to prove overblown, according to an influential new white paper that predicts improvements to energy efficiency, extensions to the life of nuclear plants, and increased investment in gas and renewables capacity will address the risk of power cuts.

The report from analyst firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts new investment in energy infrastructure, coupled with relatively weak power demand, means the UK is "on track to keep the lights on through the critical years between 2015 and 2020"...

Electricity produced by wind turbines in the UK may be cheaper than that generated by burning gas within five years, even if the climate-warming pollution from the latter is allowed to be pumped straight into the air. That is one startling implication of a comprehensive analysis produced for the Guardian by experts at Imperial College London and the UK Energy Research Centre.

The chart, which is from preliminary analysis, reveals the folly of betting the UK's energy future on the hope of cheap gas, the preferred option of many of the critics of reneweable energy...

Billions of pounds' worth of investment in Britain's energy infrastructure is on hold or uncertain because of concerns over the government's commitment to wind energy.

In an exclusive survey, the heads of some of the world's biggest wind companies, which have been considering setting up factories, research facilities and other developments in the UK, have told the Guardian they are reviewing their investments or seeking clarification and reassurances from ministers on future energy policy in the wake of growing political opposition to wind energy that culminated in this month's unprecedented attack on the government's policies in a letter signed by more than 100 Tory MPs...

Public subsidies for the development of wind power in the UK are dwarfed by the tax breaks enjoyed by fossil fuels, a new Guardian analysis has revealed. Financial support for fledgling renewable energy industries has increasingly come under attack in recent months, but the new data shows that the older industries benefit to a far greater extent.

Gas, oil and coal prices were subsidised by £3.63bn in 2010, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , whereas offshore and onshore wind received £0.7bn in the year from April 2010. All renewables in the UK benefited from £1.4bn over the same period, according to data from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc)...

Just six energy companies EDF, E.ON, Centrica, SSE, Scottish Power and npower control 99 per cent of our domestic energy market but show only minor interest in renewables

Huge profits announced by EDF and Centrica recently have sparked further debate about the behaviour of the so-called 'big six' energy companies and their stranglehold of the energy market. At worst they may not only be overcharging customers but also holding back a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make the transition to renewable energy...

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